This Private Plot Reviewed By Richard Mann Of BookPleasures.com

Richard Mann

Reviewer Richard Mann:
Richard is a retired CPA, college instructor, and paralegal in Ogden,
Utah. He has published over 500 magazine articles and a commercially
published e-book, including several book review columns in magazines.
He loves to read mysteries, westerns, humor, selected non-fiction,
and computer books. To read more from Richard check out hisÂ BLOG.

This is the third book in
Alan Beechey’s series of amusing mystery novels about Oliver
Swithin. These books are hard to describe; they are unlike anything
else I’ve ever read.

Let me give you an idea of
why I say that. Oliver Swithin is a young man in England who
pseudonymously writes a series of children’s books, the Railway
Mice series, which features a villainous ferret. Oliver’s books
are runaway hits in Britain. His Uncle Tim is a Scotland Yard
detective superintendent, and Oliver’s girlfriend is the uniquely
beautiful and strong-minded policewoman, Effie Strongitham. Effie
works for Uncle Tim.

The first book in the
series, An Embarrassment of Corpses, set the tone for the series. It
is almost surreal—in a humorous, unexpected way—in the sequence
of unlikely but intriguing events. It involves a serial killer (and
I hate serial killer books as a rule) who kills one totally unrelated
person daily in increasingly peculiar ways. (I think I remember
someone being impaled by a javelin, for instance.) That book for me
was an absolute delight. The whimsically fantastic series of events
eventually made perfect sense, and we had a wonderful time getting to
the solution.

The second book, Murdering
Ministers, was a dud for me. The mystery takes place in a
working-class British church and neighborhood involving some
cult-like behavior. It was a downer for me; the bright points of
whimsy were completely dulled by the heavy, spirit-crushing
environment of the book.

Now comes the third book,
A Private Plot. Book One was published in 1997, Book Two in 1999.
After 15 years, we get Book Three. Would the bright, funny whimsy of
Book One reappear, or would we have another near miss?

The first sentence may
give a hint of the answer to that question:

The odd thing about a
banana, Oliver Swithin mused as he chased the naked policewoman
across the moonlit field, is not that it’s an excellent source of
potassium, but that everybody seems to know it is.

In the opening scene,
Oliver’s girlfriend Effie has convinced him to disrobe for a
bracing naked run through a maze in the village commons at midnight.
Someone told her it was an honored ancient fertility rite. They
encounter Uncle Tim and his wife, similarly unclothed, who have been
told the same story. The two parties, trying desperately not to look
at each other, find a dead body hanging from the old hangman’s tree
at the center of the maze. Complications, as you might imagine,
ensue.

Do you see what I mean
about the dizzying but hilarious tone of these books?

As the story goes on,
unlikely events occur in a fast-paced but totally understandable
sequence. The book is full of snarky comments, humorous references
(I’m sure I only caught about half of them, as they are mostly
British-based), and increasingly complex relationships and
developments.

I loved it—eventually.
The first 40 or 50 pages, for all their interesting situations, did
not really engage me. Perhaps the snarkiness was a bit heavy. At any
rate, the tone lightened and the oddball, outrageous discoveries and
revelations pick up at a wonderful rate. There’s an absolutely
wonderful climax scene in the Stratford-on-Avon theater that is
followed by an even more stunning revelation when you think the story
has already wrapped itself up.

You’re not getting a
plot outline here. For one thing, you simply would not be able to
follow it. And you wouldn’t believe it. Instead, take my word
that the plot is all over the place in a wild, unruly but logical
way.

Do you need a little more
to entice you to read the book? How about this? The book also
involves a married couple who are never, ever seen together.
Shakespeare’s skeleton comes to the theater incognito. The local
writers’ group meetings hide a blackmail-worthy secret. Oh, one
more thing: another local resident’s presence is a matter of
national security. Really.

If any of this sounds like
fun to you, get a copy of this book. And search the Web for a copy
of the first book in the series, too.